Whitson, Soyuz Commander and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian Spaceflight Participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor docked their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft to the station at 10:50 a.m. EDT. The crew launched on Wednesday, Oct. 10, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Whitson officially became the station commander after a ceremony Friday, Oct. 19. This change of command event marked the formal handover of the station to Whitson and Malenchenko, just days before the Expedition 15 crew members and Shukor departed.

"I think it's special that I get the opportunity to play that role," Whitson said when asked about being the first woman station commander. "But I think it's also special to have an opportunity to demonstrate how many other women also work at NASA."

Another female astronaut, space shuttle Discovery Commander Pam Melroy, reached another milestone in late October when she and her crew arrived at the station. It marked the first time two women have led space missions at the same time.

This is Whitson's second six-month rotation aboard the orbiting complex. She previously served as a flight engineer on Expedition 5 in 2002, when she became NASA's first station science officer, conducting 21 investigations in human and life sciences. During that mission, she also used the station's robotic arm to help add two truss segments to the station's backbone and performed a spacewalk to install debris shielding.

Image at left: Expedition 5 crew portrait; Image at right: Expedition 16 crew portrait including the flight engineers who will serve at various times during the increment.

When Whitson returns home in April 2008, she will hold yet another distinction, that of having spent more time in space than any other woman.

Eileen Collins ProfileEileen Collins took an unprecedented flight far from the skies that overlook the lush river valley nestled below Harris Hill in upstate New York where she once only dreamed of soaring high.+ Read More